1. Martin Chemnitz was an eminent second-generation German, Evangelical Lutheran, Christian theologian, and a Protestant reformer, churchman, and confessor.
12 Facts About Martin Chemnitz
1. 2.
Martin Chemnitz's father was a successful merchant who died when Martin was eleven: thereafter, the family suffered from financial difficulties.
3.
Martin Chemnitz helped his family with its clothing business for the next few years.
4.
Martin Chemnitz remained in school until his finances were exhausted; he then took a teaching job in the town of Wriezen, supplementing his income by collecting the local sales tax on fish.
5.
Martin Chemnitz graduated in the first class with a Master of Arts degree.
6.
However, a plague soon infested the Baltic Sea Hanseatic German port town of Konigsberg in East Prussia, so Martin Chemnitz left quickly for Saalfeld.
7.
When he judged it safe, Martin Chemnitz returned to Konigsberg in 1550, now employed by Albert, Duke of Prussia, as the court librarian for the Konigsberg State and University Library.
8.
Martin Chemnitz began his own course of study by carefully working through the Bible in the original languages of Hebrew and Ancient Greek with the goal of answering questions that had previously puzzled him.
9.
Martin Chemnitz moved back to Wittenberg in 1553 as a guest of Melanchthon.
10.
Martin Chemnitz lectured on Melanchthon's Loci Communes, from which lectures he compiled his own Loci Theologici, a system of theology.
11.
When Morlin resigned in 1567, Martin Chemnitz became his successor; he held the post for the rest of his life.
12.
Martin Chemnitz was instrumental in the publication of the definitive Book of Concord: Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church presented in 1580, containing a series of important earlier confessional theological documents, treatises, commentaries, catechisms as the compilation of the doctrinal standard of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.